The disc of Phaistos is the most important example of hieroglyphic inscription from Crete and was discovered in 1903 in a small room near the depositories of the “archive chamber”, in the north - east apartments of the palace, together with a Linear A tablet and pottery dated to the beginning of the Neo-palatial period (1700- 1600 B.C.). Both surfaces of this clay disc are covered with hieroglyphs arranged in a spiral zone, impressed on the clay when it was damp. The signs make up groups divided from each other by vertical lines, and each of these groups should represent a word. Forty five different types of signs have been distinguished, of which a few can be identified with the hieroglyphs in use in the Proto- palatial period.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Still one of my favorite photos of 2008: the Beijing Olympic Segway Police.

In this photo released by the official Xinhua news agency, members of China's armed police demonstrate a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, east China, on Wednesday July 2, 2008, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Slan by A. E. van Vogt, published in 1940 in Astounding Science Fiction.

His mother’s hand felt cold, clutching his.

Her fear, as they walked hurriedly along the street, was a quiet, swift pulsation that throbbed from her mind to his. A hundred other thoughts beat against his mind, from the crowds that swarmed by on either side, and from inside the buildings they passed. But only his mother’s thoughts were clear and coherent-and afraid.

‘They’re following us, Jommy,’ her brain telegraphed. ‘They’re not sure, but they suspect. Somebody reported us, and our house has already been raided. Jommy, if the worst comes, you know what to do. We’ve practiced it often enough. And, Jommy, don’t be afraid, don’t lose your head. You may be only nine years old, but a nine-year-old slan is as intelligent as any fifteen-year-old human being. Don’t be afraid, no matter what happens.’

U.S. and Afghan soldiers in Zabul Province give high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces, who like to ride these captured Taliban motorbikes to sneak up on, and chase Taliban fighters. The “LithSof” are on their way to becoming living legends: Both Afghans and Americans report that the Taliban are afraid of the Lithuanians. Stories about them are filled with dangerous escapades and humor.

Americans say that the Lithuanians are sort of a weaponized version of Borat, who think nothing of sauntering around a base in nothing but flip-flops and underwear. “They look like mountain men. They never shave, sometimes don’t bathe, and often roll out the gate wearing nothing but body armor and weapons. Not even a t-shirt,” an American soldier told me. The Lithuanians may be a little bit nuts, but the Americans love to have them around because Lithuanians love to fight, and when you need backup, you can count on them. That contrasts starkly with many of the NATO “partners.” Maybe when your country spends almost a half-century with the Soviet boot on its neck, its first generation of free soldiers know what freedom is worth — and that you sometimes have to fight for it.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Samsung and the University of South Korea developed an autonomous surveillance system equipped with a machine gun. Two cameras with zoom allow operation during day and night. Advanced pattern recognition algorithms ensure highest reliability and allow the system to even recognize people between trees."Invaders" (or victims, depending on perspective) can be warned via a speaker system.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Quoting the Foreword in the Instruction pamphlet: "The ability of units and individuals to survive and remain combat effective in a nuclear war will depend, in large measure, on the immediate actions which they take when confronted with radioactive hazards. The Commander's Radiation Guide provides the field commander with a valuable tool for the rapid evaluation of radiological situations."

Friday, December 12, 2008

Tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims move around the Kaaba, the black cube seen at center, inside the Grand Mosque, during the annual Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008

This doesn't even look real, more like a rendered graphic or something out of Sim City. The photo gallery at Boston.com gives a good insight in the immense logistical challanges posed by the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Poland’s new western border corresponds exactly to the old DDR one, with East German cities renamed Drezno (Dresden), Lipsk (Leipzig) and Berolinsk (Berlin), among others.

The Czech Republic extends into northern Bavaria, including Nuremhora (Nuremberg).Austria has gone completely Italian (Salzburg is now Salcastello) and has overrun southern Bavaria, including Monaco di Baviera (Munich).

France reaches across the Rhine all the way up to Cassel (Kassel), and has frenchified cities like Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Mayence (Mainz) and Charlesrepos (Karlsruhe).

The Netherlands reach Hamburg and touch Poland, and include Keulen (Cologne), Dusseldorp (Dusseldorf) and Willemspoort (Wilhelmshaven).

Ha ha yeah, this is right down my alley. Similar to the idea of the "American Archipelago", where the whole continent is blown away and only some scattered islands remain. Well this reminds me...

"According to this top secret Russian document," dated February 26, 1973, "Soviet military engineers" were interested in what they refer to as "assumed changes in geographical structure of Earth continents which may happen as a result of correction of gravity field of the Earth by the A-241/BIS device."

Thursday, December 11, 2008

This letter, written in 1957 by Colonel Leslie S. Moore of the U.S. Biological Weapons Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to a member (whose name I've removed) of the A.S. "(Atmospheric Sciences") division, was basically a get-out-of-hell-free card for its bearer in the case of devastating nuclear attack.

INTERVIEWERWhat are some of your writing habits? Do you use a desk? Do you write on a machine?

CAPOTEI am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I've got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don't use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon. Obsessions of this sort, and the time I take over them, irritate me beyond endurance.

If you think that the current economic crisis is something that has never happened in history before, you may be wrong! After the collapse of the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe in 2000, the inflation in that country skyrocketed to 231 million percent a year! Just think about it - 231 000 000%! Unemployment went up to 80% and a third of country’s population left it.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

"Death and Taxes" is a representational poster of the federal discretionary budget; the amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected representatives in Congress. Basically, your federal income taxes. The data is from the President's budget request for 2009. It will be debated, amended, and approved by Congress by October 1st to begin the fiscal year.

Death and Taxes started on deviantART many years ago, and has since turned into a huge globe spanning informational phenomenon.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Friday, December 5, 2008

Centuries of advances in chemistry and optics, including the invention of the camera obscura, set the stage for the world’s first photograph. In 1826, French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, took that photograph, titled View from the Window at Le Gras at his family’s country home. Niépce produced his photo—a view of a courtyard and outbuildings seen from the house’s upstairs window—by exposing a bitumen-coated plate in a camera obscura for several hours on his windowsill.

This is making the rounds a bit in Germany currently: Dutch singer Johannes Heesters, now aged 105, has taken Berlin author Volker Kühn to court. Mr Kühn is claiming that Heesters performed for the SS at Dachau concentration camp in 1941. Heesters admits that he did visit the concentration camp (as is documented in photographs), but claims that they were shown only unsuspicious and well-fed prisoners, and that he did not perform at the camp.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Some years ago, I (GLS) was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no one knows who).

You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labeled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words ‘magic' and ‘more magic'. The switch was in the ‘more magic' position. (...)

It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed.

The huge bronze and gold swastika shown in this photo was destined to be returned to the United States by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., commanding general of U. S. Third Army. To indicate the source of his war prize, Gen. Patton also sent along this picture captured in Nürnberg, showing Adolf Hitler speaking to the Nazi faithful at the Luitpold Arena. Patton himself annotated the original photo with an arrow and the notation "THIS IS IT" to show that the swastika came from the podium at Luitpold.

Amateur footage of rather square procession for the German folklore festival. For the "Night of the Amazons" segment (shown in the last part of the video), the mayor of Munich obtained permission by the Gauleiter (the city's Nazi party chief) for a colorful parade, with some of the girls practically naked.

What you're looking at above is not a computer generated drawing, it is a full scale wireframe representation of a Lamborghini Countach created by installation artist Benedict Radcliffe. The car is the latest in a series of wire cars Radcliffe has completed. It's likely the most ambitious, painstakingly crafted from 10 mm steel tube welded together into that familiar shape we all know and secretly love. Upon close inspection you see fine details in the wheels and the intake gills, even the letters spelling "Pirelli P7" are worked out in tubing.

I find Harry Harrison's "Mechanismo" a quite mixed bag, but this artwork stands out especially because of its detailed (and nerdy) description text, which is quoted in part here:

The illustration on the previous pages depicts the interior of the massive TRANSOLAR LINE'S ARRIVAL/DEPARTURES TERMINUS with its famous 'Biggest Window in the Universe". The year is 2488 SGT and the Divison Wars are hotting up throughout the Quadrant. Old Sol (Man's ancestral system) has allied itself with the Capellan Shards against the reactionary Sirian Axis (The Empire) and the legendary hero of Space vice-Marshall (later Primo Marshall of the New Empire Space Militia) TALIAN (extreme right), the most decorated man in military history, has arrived on Janus to help organise Sol's material support for the conflict. Sol was one of the militarily less well prepared systems and her assistance mostly took the form of seconded civilian craft and personnel. In particular Transolar Lines with its variety of large freight and passenger carrying craft was able to give very significant support.

In the illustration, in the background, can be seen the Transolar Lines' CLASS 4 CLIPPER 'India'. This craft is about to leave the system for the Arcturan System where it will undergo a military refit and thence to Arcturus IV to pick up a battalion of Shard combat-ready Marines along with their Biotronic Missile Unit 657 (one of the dreaded Gaussi Battle Robots or 'Two Step Toms' as they were known).

Transolar Lines employed a large number of female crew members and about to receive her orders from Talian is first pilot NIOBE-ARTEMIS VON FREYJA. She already holds the X-on Core Latch Secrifact just presented to her by Talian and her 3-pole Verity Satisfaction requirements will mean a rendezvous in Pluto proximity space. She pilots the Class 4 Clipper 'Italia' and will be ordered upon opening her secrifact to refit her craft in Arcturus. She will then go on to become one of the first female Gaussi fighter pilots. (...)

Port Security Guard CHALKY WHITE has had instructions to apprehend the notorious 'Planetary Wanderer' HUGO LE GRIFFE (later famous as the author of several books, notably 'To Pluto and Back on a Tandem', 'Stowaway on a Ripple Rider' and the award winning 'A Bent Pin on Rivel VIII--A Tantallium Star on my Chest'.) Later he was drawn into a magnificent career with the Shard F.U.E.W.E. (Foundation for Undermining of the Empire's War Effort). Port Security Guard White wears the regulation (and Quadrant wide) security helmet made of 80% plasto-beryllomolybactium and 20% quasi-dermodiamond plus. Helmets of these types will withstand a sustained pressure of 8000 tons per square centimetre without defoming or scratching although they are vulnerable to sustained heat-weapon attack. The port security man holds a non-lethal electro disabler in his right hand as well as a small and lethal Teedee gun in his holster.

Behind the main group is HAROLD D'ALGONQUIN DAZHBOG, adventurer, mercenary smuggler, one time politician, on time embezzler, ex-starship pilot, womaniser and extremely wealthy man. He is waiting to buttonhole Talian and offer his services in some mercenary capacity. Dazhbog succeeded in creating havoc, after Talian accepted his offer, amongst the Sirius System, making hit and run attacks on all manner of Axis targets. He thus earned large sums of money from the Shards and traded with Axis under a diguise, taking their money and then blowing them out of the Universe wherever his luck would allow. Eventually it ran out, however and he was identified while on a bogus commercial attaché trip to Novo Russe War Ministry. While making a dash across a Neorganika-defined auto-highway he slipped and was sucked into the vacuum-grab of a robo detritus-conversion unit where he was rendered, along with the detritus, into plant fertilizer. There is a small plot of land in the middle of a field on Sirius IV where the cabbages are said to grow 12 feet across!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Creating a nuclear reaction is not simple. In power plants, it involves splitting uranium atoms, and that process releases energy as heat and neutrons that go on to cause other atoms to split. This splitting process is called nuclear fission. In a power plant, sustaining the process of splitting atoms requires the involvement of many scientists and technicians.

It came as a great surprise to most, therefore, when, in 1972, French physicist Francis Perrin declared that nature had beaten humans to the punch by creating the world’s first nuclear reactors. Indeed, he argued, nature had a two-billion-year head start.1 Fifteen natural fission reactors have been found in three different ore deposits at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. These are collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors.

Astronaut C. Michael Foale, Expedition 8 commander and NASA ISS science officer, equipped with a bungee harness, exercises on the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System (TVIS) in the Zvezda Service Module on the ISS on April 12th, 2004.

Honestly, the International Space Station looks a bit like a mess. Yeah, yeah, talk about economy, maximum space usage et cetera, but still, take a look at these pictures.

To prepare for a permanent six-member crew, Nasa is flying four private boudoirs to the orbital outpost. Two were delivered this week aboard the space shuttle Endeavour and were installed in the station's Harmony node. Two more are due to arrive in 2009 and early 2010. The pods are small - about the size of a commercial jet's bathroom - but well designed. Nasa designed and built the four rooms itself, at a cost of about $30.9m.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

During World War I, the British and Americans faced a serious threat from German U-boats, which were sinking allied shipping at a dangerous rate. All attempts to camouflage ships at sea had failed, as the appearance of the sea and sky are always changing. Any color scheme that was concealing in one situation was conspicuous in others. A British artist and naval officer, Norman Wilkinson, promoted a new camouflage scheme that was derived from the artistic fashions of the time, particularly cubism. Instead of trying to conceal the ship, it simply broke up its lines and made it more difficult for the U-boat captain to determine the ship's course. The British called this camouflage scheme "Dazzle Painting." The Americans called it "Razzle Dazzle."

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

In the simplest definition Starflight is a computer game for the IBM PC developed by Binary Systems which started development in 1983, and was released in 1986 "after 15 man years" for the cutting edge video technologies of the time, namely black-and-white, Hercules monochrome, composite TV, 4-color CGA, and 16 color Tandy graphics. Later a second version was released with EGA graphics support and versions were ported to the C64, Amiga, Atari ST and the Sega Genesis platforms. Three years later two of the five original developers went on to create the sequel Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula.

But still this doesn't answer the question of "What is Starflight?" Starflight is an open ended space simulator of 269 star systems and roughly 800 planets. Is also a role-playing game considering your ships strengths are improved as you spend resources on crew training, equipment purchases, and obtain specialized artifacts. It is an adventure game set in space with a sophisticated artificial intelligence system, alien races with distinctive language traits, personalities, and behaviors. It is a simulator of a huge universe requiring greater and greater amount of fuel to travel to distant locations. It contains open-ended scripting with chains of hints leading players varied and different conclusions about meanings and histories and events.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, 1977. The most realistic and most gripping of all of Dick's work. An embedded undercover narcotics officer is increasingly taken in by the drug he has to use in order to maintain his cover, and becomes schizophrenic to the point of total identity loss. It's really a heartbraking tale and mostly auto-biographic.

Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in fact, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs.

Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were. They now filled his house. He read about many different kinds and finally noticed bugs outdoors, so he concluded they were aphids. After that decision came to his mind it never changed, no matter what other people told him . . . like "Aphids don't bite people."

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Guy Peellaert (Brussels, Belgium, April 6, 1934 - Paris, France, November 17, 2008) was a Belgian artist, painter, illustrator, comic artist and photographer, most famous for his album covers for rock artists like David Bowie (Diamond Dogs) and The Rolling Stones (It's Only Rock 'n' Roll). He also designed film posters for films like Taxi Driver, Paris, Texas and Short Cuts.

Paradroid was one of my favorite video games back in the day. So simple, but it was so exciting when you managed to take over one of the badass robot models with the high number. Great controls, great sound, great everything! ZZap64 issue from October 1985 has a very interesting production diary by developer Andrew Braybrook, who wrote, designed and coded the game practically alone, constantly griping with the kilobyte limitations of the hardware.

They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died. They jumped continually, from all four sides of the building, and from all floors above and around the building's fatal wound. They jumped from the offices of Marsh & McLennan, the insurance company; from the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading company; from Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors -- the top.

For more than an hour and a half, they streamed from the building, one after another, consecutively rather than en masse, as if each individual required the sight of another individual jumping before mustering the courage to jump himself or herself. One photograph, taken at a distance, shows people jumping in perfect sequence, like parachutists, forming an arc composed of three plummeting people, evenly spaced. Indeed, there were reports that some tried parachuting, before the force generated by their fall ripped the drapes, the tablecloths, the desperately gathered fabric, from their hands. They were all, obviously, very much alive on their way down, and their way down lasted an approximate count of ten seconds.